The Moussaoui exhibits

On Monday, for the first time ever, a U.S. federal court provided online access to nearly all the exhibits submitted in a recent criminal case. The case? United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui. Several of the exhibits are still classified and under seal (including one entitled “schizophrenia video” submitted by the defense), but there are nearly 1,200 other documents, videos, and photographs available – everything from Moussaoui’s report cards from 1975, photographs of the inside of a flight simulator, and “1 box cutter”. There’s also the “substitution for testimony” from several terror detainees, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks. I’m guessing that releasing all of the exhibits is kosher despite Moussaoui’s pending appeal of his life sentence, but it just makes every armchair attorney out there able to now render an opinion on whether he should be able to withdraw his guilty plea.